Host of the syndicated Food Chain Radio talk show, Michael Olson has been farming since the age of six and has produced feature-length news for various media. In the first half, he expressed concerns over food shortages, and the selling of "fake" food. A great deal of investment has gone into developing plant-based meat substitutes like the Impossible Burger, which has ingredients that make it appear to bleed like real beef. The ethics of not killing animals is driving the popularity of some of these new plant-based foods, yet Olson believes that there is a larger agenda at work by the proponents of the Impossible Burger and related products-- they want to get rid of farm animals in general.
By harnessing the environmental and animal rights movements, "they're going after animal agriculture," he continued, reducing the need for cows, ducks, pigs, and chickens. A number of patents have been issued for the Impossible Burger, and Olson argued that the tech entrepreneurs behind such protein products were seeking an exclusive hold on the future food market once meats from animals are curtailed from grocery shelves and restaurants. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is associated with current food shortages as Ukraine provides 1/3 of the world's grain, he reported. Even in the US, we are starting to see such scarcities, he added, citing how a food kitchen that feeds the hungry was running low on staples like noodles and grain.
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Born a devout Catholic, now a resolute atheist, Tom Reilly lives in Drogheda, Ireland in a haunted castle and has taken on the might of academia regarding parts of Irish history. In the latter half, he shared ghost stories and myths from Ireland, as well lore on the famous Oliver Cromwell-- whom he says has been wrongly accused of some heinous war crimes. Paranormal investigations have been held at the castle where he lives, and a number of witnesses have reported seeing the "White Lady," said to be the apparition of a woman who visited the castle in 1852, and subsequently drowned in the Irish Sea. Reilly also talked about the legend of banshees, said to travel among homes and then wail outside one of them when someone was about to die.
Another haunted location, he mentioned, is the Hellfire Club built on a summit in Dublin, where some believe devil worship and cannibalism took place. According to Reilly's research into the controversial 17th-century English general, Oliver Cromwell, two unscrupulous individuals seemed to be personally responsible for creating the myth that Cromwell deliberately killed unarmed men, women, and children at both Drogheda and Wexford. Bizarrely, as a message from the King, after Cromwell died, his body was exhumed, and his head placed on a pike and displayed above Westminster Hall for nearly thirty years. More on the strange escapades of Cromwell's disembodied head here.
News segment guests: Lauren Weinstein, Steve Kates